American Go E-Journal

Twice The Coverage: Ranka online and the American Go E-Journal have teamed up again this year to provide comprehensive coverage of the WAGC. While there’s some overlap between the two sites’ reports, each site has a great deal of original content, so you’ll want to check both to get the full picture. Several recent Ranka posts of special interest include an interview with WAGC Chief Referee Lingdai Chen and player comments on what it’s like “Losing to the Best” amateur players in the world. Also, check out the Ranka site for WAGC latest results and a collection of game records.

Chinese Pairing: “You mentioned the Chinese pairing system producing interesting results in the Round Three Highlights article this week,” writes Steve Colburn. “Could you give us any information on how it is different than other pairing systems?” According to James Davies’ Round 3 Ranka report, “After the first two rounds, all but one of the fifteen players with two wins had taken black and white in one game each, so following the Chinese system, they were paired for the third round in order of the player numbers they had drawn before the tournament began. The highest numbered (1, Korea) played the second highest (5, Canada) and so on down to the fifteenth highest in this group (57, Sweden), who played the highest numbered player (2, Germany) in the one-win group. The one-win and zero-win groups were paired similarly, with the lowest numbered player in the one-win group (60, Vietnam) being drawn down against the highest numbered player in the zero-win group (7, Chile). All very clear and fair.”

Where To Get Shanghai Coffeeshop Lessons: “I’m going to Shanghai soon,” writes a reader, “is there anyway to find” the coffeeshop in the “Coffee Shop Lessons” (5/23 EJ) report?” Contact Danny Wang at Danny.Wang@live.com for directions, as Wang tells the EJ that “we may be moving in the near future.”